Letters: How we pick grand juries

Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle

Published 6:30 am, Sunday, February 15, 2009

Problem assumed

Regarding last Sunday's Outlook cover story "Dump 'new' selection process for county grand juries": The law professors' article missed the point. In addition to assuming a problem where no problem appears to exist, they missed the essence of our grand jury system it is not composition but that grand juries act in a conscientious, fair and impartial manner. Having equal representation for age, race, gender, political leaning, sexual preference, etc. may be theoretically desired but is not essential for fairness. Their "simple" solution to their perceived problem is to "adopt the same random selection process that Harris County uses for normal criminal and civil juries," thus ensuring grand juries "fairly represent the county's racial composition." Note, however, that only 18 percent of those called for criminal and civil jury duty show up.

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Grand jury service requires a serious commitment two mornings (or more) a week for three months. The biggest challenge is finding volunteers who can afford to take the time and will commit to attend. If anyone who is qualified is interested in serving on a grand jury, please go to the Harris County Web site and click on "Application for Grand Jury Service." Your service will be appreciated by all of us.

SKIP VAUGHANHouston

Justice will suffer

Regarding the Feb. 2 City and State cover article "Diverse grand juries sought / Five recently elected judges strive for better representation": It's a noble idea of certain newly elected criminal district judges to want to "cast a wide net" and salt grand juries with the common man.

But herein lies the problem: To empanel a grand jury with persons who don't even know of the existence of the Texas Penal Code would be a grave injustice to the accused. A grand jury is supposed to determine probable cause as to an offense not judge guilt or innocence. Many times the 12 on the grand jury are the only hope of the accused in having charges dismissed.

Grand juries must be open-minded and understand that sometimes an officer will shade the facts or lie outright. Or sometimes an assistant district attorney will misrepresent the facts in the complaint. Or sometimes the accused will tell the truth. Having knowledgeable individuals serve on a grand jury provides an invaluable backstop in the judicial system. The accused may testify to the facts it's not just the word of the district attorney, as is the case in a preliminary hearing. As someone who has served on a number of grand juries, often as foreman, I have found it extremely valuable for a grand jury to have a police officer (active or retired) who can review charges and reports for accuracy.

Some folks want to serve simply to promote a cause. Justice will suffer in the hands of the uninformed.

Give 'new' chance

Last Sunday's Outlook piece by
Sandra Guerra Thompson
and
Larry Karson
argued that our judges should summon grand jurors at random, in the same way that they summon regular (or "petit") jurors. Petit jurors are summoned coercively, through the force of law, although many citizens ignore their duty with impunity.

Grand juries and petit juries are different. Petit jurors serve for one day or one trial. It's reasonable to conscript people for that. Grand jurors serve for extended periods. Some jurisdictions do it the way Thompson and Karson suggest, but their method means a choice between excusing most of those who are summoned or imposing an unfair burden on many citizens. And if we excuse large numbers of people on hardship grounds, we're sure to create different impacts on different groups and to reintroduce various kinds of under-representation.

In the past, Thompson and Karson say that grand juries "simply did not reflect the community at large." But here's the problem: Neither did petit juries. Those juries, summoned at random for actual trials, have historically shown dramatic differences in representation of various groups. This fact is unfortunate, and officials as well as citizens should favor reversing it. But the question is, how would we best achieve that goal?

Harris County judges have announced a new plan that involves recruiting grand jurors from new sources "casting a wider net" and purposefully obtaining citizens from diverse groups. Thompson and Karson assert that this change "represents nothing new at all," but I would say it's obviously at least "new," whether one likes the plan or not.

Also, petit jurors are carefully questioned, and each side, as well as the judge, has the ability to remove those who shouldn't serve. It's difficult to think of a similar mechanism for questioning those summoned coercively for grand juries and weeding out those who shouldn't serve. I'm doubtful that we could get a civic response as solid from randomly summoned people who are asked to give up major parts of their livelihoods or endeavors. The judges' plan can go a substantial distance toward addressing the problem if it's seriously implemented, and I'd rather see it given a chance.

Hindsight on the tollway

In response to Thursday's City and State cover article "Repair bills rise to $5 million for Westpark Tollway troubles": Why didn't Harris County commissioners press the contractor and design engineer to fix the drainage problem when it was obvious in the first month the tollway was open?

Lisa Castaneda, the head of Harris County Toll Road Authority's engineering group, claimed, "We can either spend $3 million investigating what went wrong or we can spend $3 million fixing it." How ridiculous is that? Castaneda wants to spend $3 million fixing a problem the authority isn't going to investigate to determine what is wrong. No wonder our infrastructure is crumbling.

TIM HEBERTHouston

Dissatisfied cable 'owner'

Cable and satellite rates are going up. (Please see "Tuning in to paid TV gets a little costlier," Business cover, Tuesday.)

Simultaneously, over-the-air television is being diminished by a poorly implemented digital program that doesn't work when the wind blows.

The Federal Communications Commission Web site has many references to the noble concept of public ownership of the airwaves, as in, ". . . the public airwaves belong to you, the people, not the media companies." Well, this owner is more than a little annoyed by the squeeze and deeply disappointed in the performance of management.

Does anyone remember how long cable TV was out after Hurricane Ike? Think of the difficulty of communicating vital information during an emergency without reliable over-the-air broadcast signals. We're headed in the wrong direction.